What is art worth? Does the size and scale of the art make a piece more expensive? Does the medium used by the artist have any impact on its selling price? What is a first and secondary market? Why do certain pieces of art rise in value while others diminish? Does the artist’s body of work have any impact on value? How do dealers, auction houses, and galleries even go about putting a price tag on art? The Value of Art: Money, Power,Beauty, Michael Findlay
tackles these questions and explains the market for art—and art’s value for all of us.

Artsy Fartsy Show goes to the heart of our weekly discussion – what is the VALUE OF ART with guest host, Michael Findlay.

Michael Findlay is an internationally renowned art dealer, is a Director of Acquavella Galleries in New York, known for major exhibitions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century masters including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, James Rosenquist, and Lucian Freud.  Born in Scotland, Findlaybegan his career in New York in 1964, where he was a pioneer of SoHo’s legendary gallery scene and presented important solo exhibitions of then-unknown artists such as John Baldessari, Stephen Mueller, Sean Scully, and Hannah Wilke.  In 1984 he joined Christie’s as its Head of Impressionist and Modern Paintings and later was named International Director of Fine Arts while serving on the Board of Directors until 2000.  At Christie’s, he supervised the sale of many important collections, including the collections of William and Edith Mayer Goetz,  Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Hal B. Wallis, and Victor and Sally Ganz. He was also responsible for the sale of Portrait of Dr. Gachet, a painting by Vincent van Gogh which sold for $82,500,000. Since 2001 Findlay has served on the Art Advisory Panel for the Internal Revenue Service and in 2009 he was elected Vice President of the Art Dealers Association of America. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Appraisers Association of America and also the Advisory Board for Christie’s Education. His first book, The Value of Art, is published in English and German and as an e-book by Prestel Publishing.

About Michael’s Book The Value of Art: Money, Power, Beauty 

INDEPENDENTS chronicles nine friends living and working on The Lady Grey, a Revolutionary War-era tall ship, in 2012. Using historical reenactment as a cover, the eclectic crew of twentysomethings has made a living smuggling marijuana from Nova Scotia to Gloucester. But when their captain disappears, financial pressures force the incompetent group of burnouts to attempt reenactment for real. INDEPENDENTS is a new folk rock musical about friendship, late night sing-alongs, growing up, and whatever those three-cornered hats are called.

Independents is Directed by Charlie Polinger, Book by the Late Marina Keegan, Music by Stephen Feigenbaum and Lyrics by Mark Sonnenblick.

The musical is the winner of the 2012 FringeNYC Award for Best Overall Production! Is now extended through September as part of the Fringe Encores Series

September 7 @ 7pm, September 8 @ 5 pm, September 11 @ 8pm, September 14 @ 9pm, September 18 @ 8pm, & September 21 @ 7pm

Soho Playhouse
15 Vandam Street (between Varick St. and 6th Ave.)
New York, NY

Website: Independentsmusical.com

GIVEAWAYS:

WIN AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF MICHAEL FINDLAY’S BOOK THE VALUE OF ART.  Click on link below

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/YTYzOTRmMzBlNGJmNGViNWU0MGIyYzI3OThhZDQ1OjA=/

As the caption reads, this play was a brilliant look at the lives of 3 women on the very edge. Each role equally as interesting and extremely memorizing to say the least. The roles ranged from an elderly mother who had recently lost her son. A distraught ex-girlfriend who had been a huge staple in the elderly mothers’ sons life. Lastly the role of the elderly mothers daughter who had looked up to her brothers ex-girlfriend a great deal.

The setting made perfect sense as the opening scene displayed the depiction of old boxes, old baggage that had to be sift through to determine what items to keep and what items to let go. Boxes that belonged to the deceased son. These boxes represented many memories to all three women. The ex-girlfriend being very adamant to get to old love letters written to her formerly beloved ex-boyfriend, tore open boxes viciousl. The ex-girlfriend being accused of writing a book and defaming her ex-boyfriend and scarring him for life, detested the notion and suggested that it was a random character who she wrote about in the book. Both the mother and the daughter of the deceased son, recognized what the ex-girlfriends motives were and offered her an ultimatum. The mother agreed to let her have all of the love letters, in exchange for taking her mentally scarred daughter with her on the road for her book tour. A request in which she denied. This was a fantastic play and definitely a highlight of this years 2012 Fringe festival.

The end is near, or is it not ? Well for John Darrian, the end is one more whiskey away ! An absolutely hysterical comedy about John Darrian who had one too many drinks at a bar, and began hallucinating while saving the world from aliens, terrible storms, and Satan who happened to be a person he was very familiar with at the very bar where he initially got drunk in.

I was very intrigued by the character who played Satan, as he contributed to most of the hysterical moments in the play. Also John’s persistent boss who hadn’t given him a chance to explain his paranoia and the constant emergence of these Aliens in which only John Seemed to be seeing. The play ended in Triumph, and to answer everyone’s burning apocalyptic question, no the world does not end after all.

Asylum – New School for Drama – Venue # 15

Possibly one of the more creative and masterful shows I had a chance to see during the Fringe festival and for some odd reason the movie “Crash” immediately came to mind. Asylum delved into several takes of social issues that plague our society on a consistent basis. A very dark musical/dance performance into the some particular extremes such as addiction, cutting, human sexual trafficking, and eating disorders.

In all silliness, they play Oprah, media mogul Rupert Murdock, Ann Curry, Mel Gibson,  and an Irish guy because it only sounds charming in America.  This is a bit of the silliness in the fringe play YBW: Yellow Brick Wall Angry White Men Player do By Two Happy Asian Girls.

Siho Ellsmore and Marisa Marquez leave no topic untouched from the sensationalism of asian of age books with the use of word tiger and rice and luck in the title and even how to be a Wall Street mogul = marry an Asian woman.

Artsy Fartsy Show interviewed the actresses who also wrote YWB which is now in the 16th Annual International Fringe Festival in New York City mounted at HereArts.

Tell me about how YBW was developed at the Leviathan Lab and how was it more instrumental than developing it at another lab like Playwrights it Dramatist?

Leviathan Lab was very instrumental because we wouldn’t have met if they didn’t form the Asian American Women’s Writing Group. We were at an initial meeting for the group and since we were all women they needed people to read the guy parts. They kept handing us the male roles. That’s where we first got the idea to do the show. To be honest, Siho just started to get into writing and Marisa had found it very difficult to get into other writing labs in the city. Leviathan’s doors were open with Ariel (Executive Director of Leviathan) encouraging us every step of the way.

You put a lot of current pop culture references and jokes, is the development and writing ongoing or improv?

Both. When Ann Curry was let go, the scene had to be re-written. It made it better, funnier and current. We like that there is possibility for improv, even though our director Danny Williams comes from an improv background he doesn’t want us to go to off the cuff. There is a script and there are a few moments where we have written in the chance to improv. In the development of the Danny encourages we do improv and claim it so it becomes part of the show. One of our favorite lines in the show was something Siho improved and Danny said keep it but own it.

What did you find most exciting about putting Asian stereotypes on stage and are you afraid a mostly white audience would agree with some of the rhetoric. For example, New York Magazine in 2010 made the story about Asian student population at Stuyvesant HS was causing a panic of white parents to enroll their children in private schools. YBW even brings this topic to stage. (I was surprised that an audience member did give a grumble of approval to your Rush Limbaugh lines).

It was so much fun to skewer the stereotypes and put in things that personally may have hurt us in the past that we could now claim as our own. Satomi, our producer from 4Hawk Productions, is also Asian and she has been told on numerous occasions how great her English is. We live in a melting pot, but why is it that an Asian face means foreign and not American. If anyone should stereotype and objectify Asians it should be us. It lifts the mirror for other Asian to laugh and for others to see that there is still an issue.

With that said, you leave no taboo untouched and everything is fair game. What do you want your audiences to walk away knowing about the pop culture exploitation of Asians?

 We actually had a barometer in rehearsal – if we said “oh, that’s offensive” we put it in the show. We wanted Asian Americans to be empowered and proud to be Asian and we want people to see that we have come along way but we have a long way to go. The issue with the casting in The Nightingale at the La Jolla Playhouse is a prime example of the situation we make fun of in one of our scenes and casting issues we have faced personally. It looks like its ok for everyone to play Asian but Asians can’t play anyone…even Asian.

Siho and Marisa are a fabulous duo, do you plan to work together again and on what?

This is a partnership here to stay. We actually have list of shows…well maybe just titles that we think are funny that we would enjoy making into shows.

When you look forward to your next project, what do you hope to bring from this experience to your next performance?

Just to have fun and trust that if something goes wrong enjoy it and make it part of the experience because it is live theater. I think some people take acting and performing super serious, us included, but with a show like this we can let loose and enjoy the fact that we are entertainers.

For more information visit ybwproductions.com

Friday

EXPERIMENTAL COOLNESS

Gil Kuno’s Six String Sonic, The

All the way from Japan, GIL KUNO’S SIX STRING STONIC, THE is a multimedia experiment of deconstructing the guitar and reconstructing it string by string. You have to see this to believe it. It’s part sculpture, part dance, part dare-devil, and ALL inspiration. It is strategically mounted near the BLUE MAN GROUP; and from the pictures and talking to Mr. Kuno, Blue Man better watch out.

www.unsound.com/SSS/
VENUE #05: Robert Moss Theater at 440 Studios       
Fri 24 @ 7:45  Sat 25 @ 12:30

IN THE MODE TO GO SOLO

MAHMOUD won the Toronto Fringe Festival and Woody Harrelson gave it rave reviews. If anything else, Tara Grammy is an actress to watch.

www.mahmoudtaxi.com
VENUE #04: JIMMY’S NO. 43        
Fri 24 @ 5  Sat 25 @ 7

MUSICAL THEATER IS ALIVE

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE! Is easily one of the best musical in the Fringe. I saw it the first week and its silliness and anti-musical antics have stayed with me throughout the Fringe. Great hang out play to drag your friends to the Fringe.  I am off to see NON-EQUITY: THE MUSICAL, today, which is also playing Saturday at The Players Theatre 8:15pm.  I played music from both musicals on the Artsy Fartsy Show and the lyricist should do a battle royale for the title best musical of the Fringe.

www.thehillsarealivemusical.com
VENUE #03: Theatre 80        
Fri 24 @ 9

SAVE TIME TO VACUUM

Vacuum

Friday is the last chance to see VACUUM and it is a must-see play. The writing by Arelen Hutton is Brilliant and the ensemble cast is stellar under the direction of Emmy Award Winner, Chris Goutman.

www.arlenehutton.com
VENUE #12: Cherry Lane Theatre        
Fri 24 @ 9

Saturday

STEAMPUNK LOVER

LOVESICK is a whimsical, magical goth story of falling in love. It runs a bit too long but worth seeing. Don’t forget your goggles. The LOFT is based out of LA so they don’t come round these parts often.

www.loftensemble.com
VENUE #02: Connelly Theater        
Fri 24 @ 8:15  Sat 25 @ 3

THE JADED OR NOT SO JADED BUT NEED SOME INSPIRATION LIKE NOW ACTOR

Funny, delightful, witty and inspirational. NON-EQUITY THE MUSICAL does for actors what the The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee did for spellers – laugh.

www.nonequitythemusical.com
VENUE #10: The Players Theatre        
Sat 25 @ 8:15

SOMETHING COMPLETELY SILLY AND YET MAKES YOU THINK

YBW – Yellow Brick Wall: Angry White Men Played by Two Happy Asian Girls

Writer/Performer duo, Siho Ellsmore and Marisa Marquez are hilarious as they poke fun at pop culture and how Asian culture is popularized from coming of age books, to the trophy wife that every Wall Street wannabe mogul needs to get and even Ann Curry finally get to have the last word. Don’t miss out on YBW- YELLOW BRICK WALL: ANGRY WHITE MEN PLAYED BY TWO HAPPY ASIAN GIRLS.

www.YBWproductions.com
VENUE #19: HERE Dorothy B. Williams Theater        
Fri 10 @ 7  Sat 11 @ 8:15  Sun 19 @ 5:45  Wed 22 @ 5  Fri 24 @ 8:15  Sat 25 @ 5:45

Sunday

IF YOU WANT TO BE AWESTRUCK

See OASIS: EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST BUT WERE AFRAID TO DANCE by Nejla Y. Yatkin (Director, Choreographer) is bold, delicate and provocative. If you havent seen her work yet, go now. She is the next Pina!

www.ny2dance.com
VENUE #03: Theatre 80        
Sun 26 @ 1

PASSIONATE SHOW BY A PASSIONATE PLAYWRIGHT

See SHOVE

Joseph D. Almanza was a Fringe U guest and he spoke passionately about theatre and his writing experience. Mr. Almanza writes what he knows, before he became a theater artist, he grew up in a police household and was a cop. I will air my interview with Joseph next Tuesday(Aug 28, 2012 at 2pm on WBAI 99.5FM) on the Artsy Fartsy Show.

VENUE #02: Connelly Theater       
Fri 24 @ 6:30  Sun 26 @ 12

MAGDALEN

Writer: Erin Layton
Director: Julie Kline

www.magdalentheplay.wordpress.com
VENUE #09: The Gene Frankel Theatre
Sun 12 @ 9:30  Sat 18 @ 1:45  Tue 21 @ 8  Wed 22 @ 4:15  Fri 24 @ 9

MAGDALEN transports you to busy 1940′s laundry room in Dublin, Ireland run commercially by the Irish Catholic Church. The girls who are handicapped, a bastard or abused orphan, and unwed pregnant women were forced by society to live and work without pay for the church. These girls are penitent, forever sinners and their hopes for a saving grace are void.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inY2jf7nAX0&feature=youtu.be]

Erin Layton give a magical performance, in which she also penned,  and gives each character a voice to their silent past.

ARTSY FARTSY SHOW: How many dialects do you perform?

ERIN: I perform (or attempt, I should say:) 3 different Irish dialects in MAGDALEN – North Dublin for my male narrator, County Galway for my Reverend Mother and South Dublin for my penitent girls. The dialects were entirely arbitrary. I wanted to find dialects that were easily identifiable between a mid to low class Irish (the penitents and the hostel owner) to higher class Irish (the Order). I listened to a dialect tape that recorded conversations with people from different regions of Ireland and watched films and documentaries with people from Dublin, specifically.

ARTSY FARSY SHOW: How did you first find this story of the Good Shepard Sisters and why did you decide to do it as an one-woman show instead of a full cast program?

ERIN: I read about the Good Shepherd Sisters in a book called “Do Penance or Perish” by Frances Finnegan.  I found their mission and vision for “saving the souls” of these penitent girls frightening and horrifying but also oddly persuasive. They truly believed that they were doing God’s will by forcing these girls and women to do slave labor amongst the many other atrocities they purposefully exposed them to. I initially chose the solo show format as a way to showcase my work as an actor but the more I perform this play, the more I realize that the solo show really serves the story. Performing MAGDALEN as one person drives the narrative of the piece which is that no single character stands alone – they are all complicit in each other’s narrative, from the modern day Irish hostel owner to the priest to the disabled penitent girl. Ireland is a small nation and the mystery of the Laundries even smaller. All the characters hold within them a secret of the Laundries that feeds the other and they all revolve around the image of the little penitent girl in the drab robe and worn apron – which is me.

ARTSY FARTSY SHOW: The topic on Tuesdays Artsy Fartsy Show was about producing and balancing life and art. How did you balance your writing, rehearsing, producing schedules with your day job to prepare for MAGDALEN.

ERIN: Tough! Fortunately, the writing of MAGDALEN has been going on for well over two years with only one full year of actual script/performance development. With the Fringe, it was taxing to figure out how to maintain my physical energy so that I was able to work during the day and then hit the ground running in rehearsals at night. Thanks to Kickstarter, the one piece and major piece that I did not have to worry about was money. I created a Kickstarter page for MAGDALEN and was able to raise all the money that I needed to pay my very talented production crew. This allowed me to really throw myself into the art of the work and spend two to three weeks with my director, Julie Kline, crafting, structuring and molding MAGDALEN into the story that we wanted to tell. She and I have been molding different drafts of MAGDALEN for over a year now. It was hard to strike the balance between focusing on the development of the piece while producing, promoting, getting the word out. Fortunately, I worked with Molly Pearson who runs a company called Produce Your Own Work and she held me accountable to dividing up my time so that I was able to give the producer and performer/writer self room to do the work and to breathe. I worked with a wonderful producing manager and publicist who helped me and helped the show immensely. There’s way more that I wish I would have done as the producer but as a first shot I think it has worked out well.

Artsy Fartsy Show chatted with Erin after the show about the 2009 Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse or better known as the Ryan Report. The Ryan Report was a national inquest to find the extent and lasting-effects of abuse in Ireland’s institutions from 1939 onward.

I did not but now that you mention it, I would love to check this out. MAGDALEN was inspired by the discovery of bodies on a sold Laundry property in Dublin in 1996. Over 133 bodies were found. I’m not at all surprised that there were more bodies found. It’s all indicative of the Church trying to cover up this black hole of Ireland’s history.

ARTSY FARTSY SHOW: What was the process of researching for the play? What was most fascinating in your research?

ERIN: I traveled to Ireland in 2010 to research the abandoned Laundry sites. I spent my time in Dublin with a visit or two to the country. Justice for the Magdalenes, an advocacy group for the survivors of the Laundries in Ireland and the U.S. assisted me in my research when I went to Ireland. For the most part, I would visit an abandoned building or cemetery and talk to locals along the way who had had exposure to the Magdalene Laundries. The most fascinating part of my research, aside from the actual research material – the books, the films – were the conversations with the Irish people.  Several people I spoke to either flat out told me to not write a play about the Laundries or expressed their deep shame over the girls or their background growing up in Catholic Ireland. I met my modern day narrator, Reid, inside an abandoned laundry building that he had converted into a hostel for young heroin addicts in North Dublin. He was the most generous person I met as far as sharing his honest experience with the penitent girls and the Laundries. He told me several times that he never really knew what happened behind closed doors.

GIRL IN AN ARGENTINE LANDSCAPE

Writer: Naomi Grossman
Director: Richard Embardo

www.naomigrossman.net/Girl_In_Argentine_Landscape.html
VENUE #09: The Gene Frankel Theatre
Tue 14 @ 6  Wed 15 @ 8  Fri 17 @ 4  Tue 21 @ 9:45

THE GIRL IN AN ENTINE LANDSCAPE is actually Naomi Grossman’s first one-women show that she is re-mounting just for us, lucky New Yorkers. Last year, I loved her delightful play, CARNIVAL KNOWLEDGE, about her luck with love. THE GIRL IN AN ARGENTINE LANDSCAPE, Naomi relates her coming of age as a Israeli-Norwegian teen with a Latin heart through cubism, modernism, surrealism and impressionism. She escapes her Lisa Simpson life to be an exchange student in Argentina where she goes to the end of the world to find herself.

Naomi’s wit and stage presence are a real treat to experience.

If you get a chance here is her interview on the Artsy Fartsy Show Tuesday, August 14

http://www.wbai.org/server-archive.html

I ran into Myron the Magnificent outside of OASIS, at Theatre 80. He did two cool magic tricks. One he took my $50 dollar bill and put a hole through it. I hope I can still use it for dinner…. I only tease, Myron gave my $50 bill back in perfect condition.

Here is a quick video of Myron performing another trick for me….

So go see the play, MYRONIC!

Myronic! Starring Myron the Magnificent and the Lovely Vera
Myron and Vera were headliners at Rudy’s Off-Strip Casino until an unfortunate accident with their signature flaming sword illusion. Now the duo has returned East to re-launch their bewildering magical revue. Come be mystified by Myronic!

www.myronthemagnificent.com
 The Players Theatre        
Sat 11 @ 7:45  Sun 12 @ 5  Wed 15 @ 9:30  Tue 21 @ 7  Sun 26 @ 12

Artsy Fartsy Show’s Fringe Live SHIFT YOUR FOCUS

Missed this week’s program, you have 10 days from the broadcast date to listen online http://archive.wbai.org and some shows are archived for longer on http://artsyfartsyshow.com.